He Casts The Kind Of Glow Only A City Knows
by deepforests
Summary: (sci-fi au) An eighteen year old Bruce Wayne, with the aid of his organic-robot butler Alfred, attempts to find meaning in an unraveling city.
1. Chapter 1

"I'm sorry. There is no Alfred Pennyworth in this hospital."

"He'd be in the organic-robot ward," said Bruce.

The receptionist laughed.

"Oh. Sorry. You don't act like-"

"I'm not-"

The receptionist shook his head.

"Don't worry. You don't need a human escort to visit the robot ward. Give me your wrist."

Bruce rested his hand on the high counter. The receptionist taped the paper about his wrist.

"There. That's a pass to visit your friend. Just don't shortcut through the human wards."

"I'm not a robot," Bruce said.

The receptionist laughed.

"Shh. No need to make a fuss. People are rather… on edge today, what with the riots and all."

Bruce turned and went on down the corridor through the human wards. He had his ID if it really was going to be necessary to prove he was human, and he was done with talking to the receptionist. His shoulders were shaking, and he clenched his fists to try and make it stop. He tried to keep breathing normally, to slow his heart-rate. The antiseptic scent was calming. Despite it all, the hospital was a good sort of place. The nurses and the doctors fluttered up and down the halls like sweaty, stern-faced angels. They did their best. He breathed out, and tried to smile a little. Surely, everything would be okay again soon. Albert couldn't have been badly hurt. He wasn't in the intensive care or anything like that.

Then there was the screaming. It was a sharp, high sound that tore viciously through the air. An elderly woman pushed her way out of a hospital room. She clawed at the orderlies who tried to hold her back. Her eyes were streaming. A thin trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth and down her chin. She pushed forward against them, and they were straining to contain her.

"I need to go home," she said, calmly now. "I need to go home. Bethel has broken her neck again, the poor darling. The poor darling."

Bruce looked away and continued down the hallway.

"And what will the robin do then, poor thing? He'll hide in the barn to keep himself warm, and tuck his head under his wing. Poor thing."

He turned down the hall to the left. A woman stood in front of the heavy double doors that led to the organic-robot ward. He showed her his wristband, and she opened the door.

"His room is two down and on the right," she said.

"Thanks," he replied.

He entered the room quietly, in case Alfred was resting. It was a small room, with no window. Alfred was sitting up, but his eyes were closed. His arm was in a cast. Bruce looked at him a moment, then he turned round a chair that was facing the wall and sat down. Alfred's eyes opened.

"Good afternoon," Alfred said.

"Are you okay?" Bruce asked.

"I'm quite alright," Alfred replied. "My arm has a minor fracture, but it's nothing really. I still heal faster than humans, even at my age."

"What happened?" asked Bruce. "Was it the-"

"Yes, there has been some rioting today, and yes I was caught up in the midst of it. But no, no ridiculous anti-robot group attacked me. There was rather a large crowd gathered near the Anglican Cathedral. I was passing through the crowd on my way back to the car. A car was trying to make its way through the streets, and it swerved on to the sidewalk. I got out of the way just fine, but I fell rather hard."

Bruce leaned forward and took Alfred's hand. He wasn't going to say how relieved he was that everything was pretty much okay again. But he needed to hold onto something for a moment, to know for sure that everything was continuing as usual.

"I even regained some hope for the young generation," Alfred said. "A polite young man, Jonathan Crane he said his name was, helped me to the car and drove me to the hospital. I do dislike ambulances. They're far too dramatic for such a minor injury."

"Sounds familiar," said Bruce. "Remember when Mom and Dad had me go to a public middle school for a while? I think I knew someone named Jonathan there…"

"I do remember that," Alfred said. "It did prove to be quite a learning experience."

Bruce frowned.

"They'd done so much funding for that school, so they thought it must've been a good place. It wasn't until we found out about the 'calming rooms' that they decided to withdraw me."

"Solitary confinement for middle schoolers," Alfred said.

Bruce let go of Alfred's hand, and laughed.

"I wonder if it was the same Jonathan," said Bruce. "Wouldn't that be something, after all these years? We're both practically grown-up now."

"Eighteen is hardly grown-up," said Albert. "At least, in your case."

Bruce laughed again. Everything was going to be okay. Nothing had changed at all.


	2. Chapter 2

In the dimly-lit hall, Jonathan knocked on the door to his apartment. His grandmother had several locks on the inside of the door. But today there was no answer. He knocked again, and then tried the door. It opened. It wasn't locked at all. He stepped inside. There was no scent of blood. Perhaps no one had murdered her. He turned on the light. It was a small room. The couch was pushed against the left wall. The kitchen took up the right wall. There was one other closet sized room, in which his grandmother slept. Most everything was neat and orderly, but the box of photographs that she kept under her bed had been emptied out on the floor in front of the yellow couch. He did not look closer at them. There was a dull throbbing pain in his chest. He was not allowed to look at those photographs. In the kitchen sink was a few ashes and the burnt remains of the cash he had hidden in the couch. On the counter, there was a note scrawled on the back of a photograph.

The note read:

_Dear Johnny,_

_I am going home with your mother. It is going to be a cold winter. Please keep the apartment tidy while I am gone._

_Love,_

_Grandmother_

_P.S. I washed the last of the purificant down the sink. Blood is the surer way._

He crumpled the note, and dropped it on the floor. Night was coming on and it was early November. The cold would kill her. And he was already beginning to feel the withdrawal from the purificant. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since he last purified. But it was all gone, and he had nothing with which to make more. Nor was he exactly sure how to make more. She was the one who had made it. The longest he'd ever gone without it was two days. Near the end of it he'd gone unconscious, for what he assumed was quite some time judging by the look of relief on his grandmother's face when he woke up.

She had said that blood is the surer way.

He hadn't self-harmed since he started using the purificant. But, he opened the squeaking kitchen drawer and pulled out what he hoped was a reasonably sharp knife. Perhaps it would ward off the withdraw. He pulled up the sleeve of his sweater and cut deep into his upper arm. The room came into focus. Maybe he'd be able to function until he found her. He left the apartment, locking the door behind him. Perhaps the landlady would know something about where Grandmother had gone.

* * *

><p>The landlady put two cigarettes in her mouth, and lighted them with a match.<p>

"She was walking up and down the halls," she said. "Yelling something about being late for a funeral. I told her to get back in her apartment and she back-handed me."

She gestured to the right-side of her face.

"So I called the hospital. Said I thought she might be having a stroke. I guess they took her to the main hospital, but they'll probably commit her to a mental hospital."

She was still talking, something about decrease in the value of adjacent rooms, but he couldn't hear her anymore. The air in the room felt hazy. The hard white light made paper-cut out shadows on the floor. Grandmother was thrashing in a white bed with white sheets. There were no windows anywhere. No clear, clean skies filling up with clouds. The landlady was still talking, her voice had grown softer. Her pupils had dilated.

" … glad the old prude is gone, aren't you?" she was saying.

He looked up at her.

"You have my phone number, don't you?" he said.

"Of course," she replied.

She was grinning now.

"Then why didn't you call me? She wasn't doing anything wrong," he replied.

"It's for the best," she said. "You've got your whole life ahead of you. You don't need to be burdened with a puritanical hag. This leaves us more time to-"

"She'll die. She'll be dead in a week at the most," he said.

A drop of blood stained his sleeve. He put his hands behind his back.

"Johnny," she said, her voice breaking.

He stepped back. The floorboards squeaked.

"But she'll be back, she'll be back for you," he whispered.

"I can turn you out in the street. I can make sure no one else in this neighborhood will rent to you," she said.

She smelled like flowers and burning things. He leaned forward, put his mouth close to her ear.

"Go to hell," he said.

She laughed, though she let go of his wrist.

"You're just like her, aren't you?" she said. "Completely messed up in the head? I can't believe it's considered inhumane to get rid of people like you."

The air was choking him now. He yanked open the door and walked out into the hallway. She was yelling now. A book hit the back of his head. He walked along the grey hallway, down the blue carpeted staircase, but when he reached the bottom of the staircase he still couldn't breathe. He couldn't stand still. He ran outside, through the now dark streets. Curious stares meant nothing at the moment. He needed to be able to think. And so he ran, without any idea of why or where he was going.

* * *

><p>Abandoned factories, mostly brick, lined the streets. Their broken windows gaped. Bird nests and refuse trickled out from them like spittle. Inside the buildings there were hundreds of people huddled together like mice. The cold brought people together from necessity. The sidewalks and alleyways were mostly empty here. But there were some who preferred to try their chances alone with the cold, and some who had fallen asleep before the cold had come. A flashlight bobbed along in the dark.<p>

"Why do you have that?" the Joker asked.

"Don't want to step in anything bloody or mushy," Harley said.

She picked her way carefully along the sidewalk.

"If you draw unwanted attention to yourself," he said, "you can deal with it yourself."

"Oh, _do_ be a gentleman," Harley replied.

But she turned off the flashlight.

"What are here for anyways?" she asked.

"Fate," he replied. "The twisting of strings and the cutting of threads. We are here to find ourselves an angel. And what do angels do best? They fall, my dear, they fall."

"I don't know," Harley said. "I always thought of angels more as flying. Like the ones by that Botticelli guy. Those are the best."

She bent over a shaking body that lay in the gutter. His eyes were wide-open and clear-blue, but he didn't see her. She poked him with her foot.

"Will he do?" she asked.

The Joker shrugged.

"I don't know," he said. "Looks pretty drugged up."

The blue eyes closed, and, for a moment, the shaking stopped.

"I guess he'll do," he said. "There aren't any high-quality angels around here."


	3. Chapter 3

_Its been a long time since I uploaded a chapter, but starting now I will upload a chapter each Friday._

* * *

><p>Bruce was sitting in the large cave he'd used as hideout for years. It was cool, and damp, and rather dark. But he had a flashlight, and some light came from the opening which was up high near the ceiling of the cave. He liked to call it the bat cave, since once there had been hundreds of bats in this part of the cave. They had gone further back into the cave over the years, but he still saw some every once in a while.<p>

He was looking through the little pile of drawings he had done as a child. They were of a man in a black cape with a black mask with pointed ears. It seemed ridiculous that he was still thinking of it, still thinking that he, maybe- No, it was silly. He couldn't really go about the streets fighting crime, making sure that no child ever again lost their parents like he had. That he could do that _while dressed up as a bat. _Alfred was right. He was spending too much time alone, too much time in the past. He should do something. What did people do for fun anyways?

This was not a good idea, Bruce realized as he sat in a black pleather chair far from the loud, dancing, drinking teens. He only really drank when he was alone and brooding over things, and he was well aware that alcohol made him less sociable not more sociable. He did want to dance. He did want to maybe make eye contact with someone, talk to someone, and perhaps even make a friend or something else. He tapped his foot to the beat of the music.

"What are you doing all by your lonely?" a girl asked.

He looked up, startled. She was small and bright-eyed. Her hair was done in high pig-tails.

"Might as well dance while you can, huh?" she said. "No reason to waste time looking blue. So what do you say, want to dance with me?"

"I- I'm not much good at dancing," he replied.

"Aww, come on," she said. "Nobody here is any good at dancing, might as well join them."

"If you say so," he said.

He stood up, and smiled at her.

"What's your name?" he asked.

"That don't matter," she said.

She took him by the hand and pulled him onto the dance floor.

She really wasn't much better than him at dancing, but she was obviously enjoying herself and made up in enthusiasm what she lacked in rhythm. And, he was enjoying himself too. But then she leaned closer, too close really. She looked into his eyes and grinned.

"Come on," she whispered. "I want to show you something."

He nodded, unsure of what to say. She took his hand again, led him out a back door to the alley way behind the club. At first he couldn't see anything but the faint outline of her in the dark. But someone else was there. He could hear them breathing, not even trying to hide. They swung at his head, but he ducked. He heard the metal clan against the building. His eyes had adjusted, he could see more clearly now. If only he could get back inside, there were enough people he could hide easily. He tried to door. Locked. He turned to fight.

Next thing he knew, he had the man on the ground and blood on his hands. He stopped, frightened. He still could barely see. The girl he'd been dancing with ran at him now, but he jumped aside. He turned and ran down the alley way, out into the street. Where was his car? He couldn't remember for some reason. Hands shaking, he got his key from his pocket and pressed the alarm. There it was, the car right next to him. He got inside, and set off for home. He wouldn't tell Albert. Albert would worry. He didn't want to tell anyone anyways. He wanted to keep for himself the strange joy he felt. He'd come out on top. He'd won. No one, no one could ever hurt him again. He could protect the ones he loved.

Looking out at the dark sky above, the sky where the stars were hidden by the heavy glow of the city, he laughed. Maybe he would be Batman after all.


	4. Chapter 4

Edward closed his eyes tightly. Everything in the building was vaguely uncomfortable and wrong. It wasn't just in his body, in the darkening bruises and the lower ribs which he was certain must be broken though Harley had told him he was just being a baby. It was in the slanting wooden table, one leg slightly shorter than the other three. It was in the three people in the other room, all bound and gagged. This was too messy, too many things left to chance. He'd wanted to do something simple, something clean. What was the point of it anyways? Sure, there was a chance that it would all work out and the parents would pay up. But a triple, should have been quadruple, kidnapping was far too public. There were other ways to get money. What was the clown's name again? Joker, the Joker. The Joker had to have something that he wasn't telling, something else planned. But it was too late to stop now.

"What are you looking so gloomy for?" Harley asked.

She climbed up on the table and sat crouched upon it. She swung her legs back and forth, making the table rock.

"I think one of my ribs must be broken," he said. "It'll probably puncture a lung, and I'll die."

She stopped rocking.

"Riddler," she said. "Don't be like that. You're not going to die."

He wished he hadn't said that. He wished that she hadn't heard, that she'd just kept rocking the table back and forth making a slightly annoying thud sound every few seconds. She jumped off the table.

"Are you really hurt?" she asked. "Do you want me to get you a doctor?"

"No, no. I'm fine. Just testing to see if ever hear me," he replied.

"I'm sorry I left you to fend for yourself in our little run-in at the club," she said. "I thought you might be mad if I helped you. You know how some guys are."

His face reddened.

"We're pals now, okay?" she said. "Don't say no."

She beamed, and went to the door.

"I'm going out for a bit… See ya!"

The door came off the hinges for the third time that day when she slammed it shut behind her.


End file.
